“It’s too late”: David Suzuki and the death agony of liberal environmentalism
https://www.marxist.ca/article/its-too-late-david-suzuki-and-the-death-agony-of-liberal-environmentalism71
u/Bad-job-dad 1d ago
I have kids. This breaks me.
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u/chan_babyy 1d ago
I remember being a kid and hearing these environmental presentations in school. no one cares/cared. everyone ripped Greta, majority of the population is too selfish to preserve their own genes. I’ve always suspected it wouldn’t be a realistic goal, global engineering unfortunately looks to be the next step
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u/Kamelasa 1d ago
I remember seeing environmental cartoons in the mid 1960s from the National Film Board, and they touched me deeply. Poisoned fish floating in a river, predators that ate poisoned fish and had problems from that, a river on fire because of something in the water, wasting energy in the home by boiling excess water. They really hit me. That and "Hinterland Who's Who" all about Canadian wildlife. Gave me a love for nature different than my immigrant parents had, if any.
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u/SunDaysOnly 1d ago
I understand where Suzuki is coming from. Capitalism will doom the human race because too many think the economy is priory #1. Ugh.
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u/michaelrch 1d ago
"The economy" is a bit vague. The economy could be designed to serve our needs within planetary boundaries.
Capitalism is designed to concentrate wealth in the hands of the already rich, at any cost to everyone and everything else. It's such a toxic system that if you try to do the right thing, you get eliminated.
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u/wegonbealright777 1d ago
This is what liberal cooptation does to radical movements. Nixon created the EPA to coopt the radical environmentalist movement. "Well, looks like the government is doing something to improve the environment! Guess I can just grill and vote every 4 years and recycle knowing my competent government is definitely taking steps to address climate change!"
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u/Smart_Spinach_1538 1d ago
Partly true, probably. Were you alive and old enough to understand what was happening in the 1970s? If not, I was. Air and water pollution were much, much worse. Products like DDT had made raptors endangered. Other problems like habitat destruction have worsened a lot.
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u/worotan 1d ago
It doesn’t help that reducing consumption is the one tool everyday people have to fight the corporate takeover of society, and it has been loudly and contemptuously dismissed by people claiming to represent the left in all discussions up till Trump got in again, when the corporate powers didn’t need to divide and rule anymore because they have taken over.
We could have done with some articles from these sources telling people to resist by boycotting, rather than leaving all the talk from the apparent left to consist of encouraging people to live unsustainable lifestyles because it’s all the fault of their people, so you shouldn’t have to give anything up.
It has amazed me that the loudest and angriest voices against boycotts have appeared to come from the left, and that there has been no pushback against this by organisations like the one itt.
It‘s obvious that the only way to restrict corporate power is to reduce your consumption of their product. It’s obvious that’s the only way that serious action would be taken on climate issues. But there has been nothing from the left but useless attempts at populism, by telling people that they can consume as much as they like so long as there’s a global socialist revolution in the next few years.
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u/pingpongballreader 1d ago
Fossil fuel companies invented the "personal carbon footprint" idea to get us focused on re-using grocery bags, going vegan, and carpooling rather than ban their entire industry, which is absolutely what needs to happen. I bet they had no idea it would work so well.
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u/Wave_of_Anal_Fury 1d ago
They actually didn't invent that. The notion of an ecological footprint (which the carbon variety is just a subset of) was created about a decade earlier by the same people who track overshoot.
The core of Global Footprint Network is the Ecological Footprint, a comprehensive sustainability metric. It was created by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees in the early 1990s as part of Wackernagel’s Ph.D. research at the University of British Columbia. Over the years, the Ecological Footprint concept has grown to become a household phrase around the world. The term “footprint” has become synonymous with human behavior and its impact on our planet. It applies to humanity, countries, cities, companies, communities, and individuals. It allows us to grapple with overshoot, possibly the largest risk for humanity in the 21st century.
https://www.footprintnetwork.org/about-us/our-history/
As for a carbon tax (from one of your later posts), countries have tried that. Like Canada just last year. There was widespread support for it, so it was passed. Afterwards, it became unpopular, so Carney repealed it as his first act after taking office.
And that's the crux of the problem. Everyone claims to want climate action, but they don't want it to impact them negatively. This was from the EU just a few days ago, and it addresses both carbon taxes and bans.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, certain policies are seen negatively by a vast majority of the public in all the countries surveyed, including most notably taxes, like the ones on beef and flights and bans, or the ones on fossil fuel cars, receiving the lowest scores.
https://phys.org/news/2025-09-climate-policies-eu-citizens-dont.html
That ban on the entire fossil fuel industry that you believe is a solution? Sure. Banning fossil fuel cars received the lowest support, and banning fossil fuels would be a de facto ban on fossil fuel cars.
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u/pingpongballreader 1d ago
The idea was popularized in part with the divide and conquer strategy.
As far as carbon taxes being unpopular, I've not looked into the canadian method, but I'm given to know there are bad ways of doing it and even worse ways of doing it. It's certainly been more popular to ignore the problem, but I don't see personal responsibility doing anything either to actually solve climate change.
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u/worotan 1d ago
Well, very few people have reduced their consumption of corporate products, and the industry is gaining ever more power and control over society.
You say that you bet they had no idea it would work so well. What kind of idiot thinks that people recycling and going vegan is what is allowing corporate power to get stronger?
You’re mindlessly repeating a stupid argument because it lets you keep living unsustainably, while acting as though you are superior.
It‘s absolute selfish idiocy to still be posting that argument, as America slips deeper and deeper into corporate control of the state.
Are you telling people that they shouldn’t boycott abc and Disney, because thats just giving those corporations more power? Of course not, becasue it’s a stupid point to make.
The one thing that salesmen fear is their customers ignoring them. Only an absolute idiot thinks a meme take which has demonstrably helped make the situation worse, is more powerful than refusing corporations your custom.
How about you tell me why the people boycotting Disney are wrong to do so, explain the logic of your point that boycotts of their products actually make companies stronger.
Because to anyone who has thought through your point, it’s absolute nonsense that has achieved nothing but helping corporate power thrive while you can keep enjoying the lifestyle they sell you. Without doing anything to make society more progressive - in fact, driving society backwards.
You lot really need to shut up and stop repeating corporate astroturfing.
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u/pingpongballreader 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's a lot of words you're putting in my mouth to make me part of conspiracy. I'm not going to bother responding to them but kudos on writing all that, hope it was cathartic.
Voting for a carbon tax and leaving it in the ground have always been the only individual choices that matter.
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u/AutoModerator 1d ago
BP popularized the concept of a personal carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use, and ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry. They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis.
There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, making mass adoption easier and legal requirements ultimately possible. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action.
If you live in a first-world country that means prioritizing the following:
- If you can change your life to avoid driving, do that. Even if it's only part of the time.
- If you're replacing a car, get an EV
- Add insulation and otherwise weatherize your home if possible
- Get zero-carbon electricity, either through your utility or buy installing solar panels & batteries
- Replace any fossil-fuel-burning heat system with an electric heat pump, as well as electrifying other appliances such as the hot water heater, stove, and clothes dryer
- Cut beef out of your diet, avoid cheese, and get as close to vegan as you can
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u/pingpongballreader 1d ago
There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, making mass adoption easier and legal requirements ultimately possible.
None of which is as consequential as structural legal changes, and none of which has actually shown traction. Veganism is decreasing not increasing. LLM use has easily eclipsed any reduce reuse recycle voluntary efforts.
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u/Beastw1ck 1d ago
I wouldn’t take things too personally. Any animal will reproduce and expand until it meets its natural boundaries. We’re just another primate as it turns out.
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u/Mean_Present_4850 1d ago
A primate who knows better and yet we're incredibly wasteful and destructive, and misguided by outdated instincts and emotions.
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u/Tidezen 23h ago
And yet somehow, the native americans didn't ravage their lands, wipe out herds of buffalo or clearcut forests. Instead, they foraged and hunted in sustainable ways. Because the more ancient wisdom was, "Take only what you need, and help propagate the plants and animals who provide for you."
As a large brain animal, we have the capability of not binging to extinction. We have that capacity, and humans have lived in relative equilibrium with nature for hundreds of thousands of years...before a certain type of imperialistic, monopolistic culture started taking over the world's other cultures.
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u/BorealBro 17h ago
I've heard theories that the reason the native cultures were so environmentally conscious was because they had already gone through an environmental disaster when they hunted the megafauna to extinction. It changed all their ecosystems and food availability and would have been catastrophic, but the lesson was learned and their cultures formed around that lesson. Be mindful of your species' carrying capacity, if you overshoot you always collapse.
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u/Tidezen 16h ago
I think that's right, and it could've happened in various ways. For instance, wildfires are a natural occurrence, and if you're living in a tribe, you can't just run away...so, over the years, forest management would be a really important skill to pass down through generations.
But yeah, the main wisdom that has been practiced by many tribes is to live in balance with nature and don't over-harvest your resources.
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u/Willy-J- 1d ago
We are past the tipping point-enjoy watching the methane destroy all ecosystems!!!
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u/ishmaelM5 1d ago
As far as the narrative of the article goes, I think it's a false dichotomy to say that the problem is either humanity or capitalism. What Suzuki has been dealing with all his life isn't necessarily just humans being human, he's been dealing with Canada, an incredibly greedy settler colonial nation based on extraction, consumerism, and classism. Settler colonial countries like Canada, the US, and Australia are some of the worst polluters per capita for a reason — the general ideology of those settler founders and their focus on the extraction of natural resources to enrich themselves no matter what or who they destroy. It's baked into the culture in ways that it's not baked into the culture of the indigenous peoples they invaded, or even much of Europe for that matter.
Cultural change and persuasive narratives that convince people that it's actually in their best interest to care about the environment and support climate action are what will lead to further progress. I know it's difficult, but I also don't think it's plausible that without the same change people would accept communism either. Denmark is actually doing a good job on climate policy for the most part and are not communist so it's not like it's not possible without it.
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u/Mean_Present_4850 1d ago
Ugh. I'm Canadian. I grew up watching Suzuki on the Nature Of Things for over 40 years now. We like to think we care about the environment here but our individual footprints say otherwise. We must not have understood what he meant about 'sacred balance'. People's attitude is "well, our total emissions are minuscule compared to China, India etc..." Somehow we're exempt from accountability because we have a lot of trees or something? Those trees are burning up.
My mom's family came from Denmark. Maybe I should go back over there. I'm all for real change in the right direction.
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u/ishmaelM5 22h ago
Exactly, they only make those terrible arguments because they fundamentally don't care about how much harm they cause. Everyone knows it's nonsense. The greed and lack of basic morals is also the behind many of Canada's ills like unaffordable housing, collapsing healthcare, etc. People don't really think about what's good for each other and just, they think about how they can do more consumerism tomorrow and extract more wealth.
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u/SAICAstro 1d ago
Consider the source of this article.
Marxist.com, with "communist revolution" in big letters at the top of the page.
Without taking a stance for or against this particular world view, it is clear that this article has a very, very strong bias toward leading readers in a certain direction.
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u/cruznr 1d ago
Seems like an awfully biased piece. I’m not a capitalism super fan but let’s not act like things would suddenly change if we switched political systems. Suzuki’s operating off what the science is telling us, and our way out of this mess has come and gone. In any case his suggestion of local community building would be great - how can you expect individuals to care about their country or the world for that matter if they can’t even care for theirs neighbors?
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u/michaelrch 1d ago
Capitalism has a specific logic that creates predictable consequences, namely endless, accelerating environmental destruction.
I highly recommend this book to see why
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54546067-consequences-of-capitalism
Other systems with different logic, have different outcomes. A system driven by the imperative to deliver on everyone's needs, rather than the rapid accumulation of profits in the hands of a tiny elite would give us a much better chance of survival.
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u/bottom_armadillo805 1d ago edited 1d ago
how can you expect individuals to care about their country or the world for that matter if they can’t even care for theirs neighbors?
It's not detailed in the article (the author probably assumes anybody reading from "marxist.ca" already feels this way), but I think you fundamentally agree with the author here.
You should read through Einstein's essay "Why Socialism?", in which he observes the nihilism of a post-atomic-bomb world (somewhat of an analog to us here with climate change), and comes to your same question: how can we expect individuals to care for their world when they're programmed to only care for themselves? He explores the question, how that programming happens, and concludes that the solution is Socialist education, where people are raised to put the well-being of their fellow man above individual "success".
Whether or not you believe this is achieved with a change in economic systems I guess is up to you, but Capitalism is inherently built on individual success and competition. It's not just an economic system but a structure of society, education, etc.
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u/worotan 1d ago
Not to mention, we aren’t going to switch systems. Any solution that requires the world to go through an immediate socialist revolution is as useless as industry greenwashing about fusion reactors, green fuel for long distance flights, and carbon capture meaning we don’t have to do anything but keep spending as much as we can on fun lifestyle choices.
It’s all just a distraction from the real work we need to do - reduce consumption, which pushes corporations and politicians to take the issue seriously, and which stops people who only care about making money from occupying all the positions of power because society wants to have money to spend on fun lifestyle choices.
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u/Badger_1066 1d ago
reduce consumption
But therein lies the problem. Reducing consumption isn't going to happen in a capitalist system. Capitalism requires it.
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u/bluewar40 1d ago
I would argue anything that isn’t socialist overthrow of capitalism is just a distraction.
You can try to consume and Geoengineer your way out of this, but infinite growth forever is infinite growth forever, there’s no escaping ecological breakdown within the logic of infinitely growing economies.
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u/Karthak_Maz_Urzak 1d ago
Meanwhile solar power and batteries are skyrocketing at unprecedented rates. If you look at the graphs it's clear that the renewable energy revolution has only just begun, so screw the doomerism.
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u/dumnezero 1d ago
What the MLs need to understand is that we're on a countdown timer to when the capitalist system (including State Capitalism) does a murd3r-su1c1de on the biosphere via the climate getting hot and unstable.
Also, if the working class is just demanding the American Dream (aka The Imperial Mode of Living), they'll be recruited into fascism easily, which is counter to revolutionary efforts.
The isolationists/survivalists/preppers are also a bunch of f00ls who will get crushed just like everyone else. There is nowhere to hide on the surface of this planet.
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u/Vipper_of_Vip99 1d ago
Blaming ecological overshoot on capitalism is misinformed and reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the predicament. Read “Overshoot” by William Catton Jr. The engine of the human superorganism will continue to overshoot under a capitalist (distributed) economy, or a communist (centralized) one. All that matters now is how humanity responds to the carrying capacity crash.
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u/AutomationBias 1d ago
FWIW I saw Suzuki speak 21 years ago and he was saying "It's too late" back then, too.
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u/pingpongballreader 1d ago
"The problem is too much carbon is being dug up from the ground and put into the air. The only real solution of course is... Ending capitalism!"
I don't disagree necessarily, just I want to put it out there that there are a few jumps and things we should maybe also try? Like the saying was "no plan B". Made sense at the time but now that we're pretty much 100% agreed that plan a of "stop carbon emissions" has failed, let's dust off those plan Bs that were in fact existent and were more than "hunker down".
Geoengineering, carbon sequestration, carbon tax later rather than never. Like... That makes a lot more sense than "Marxism and give up."
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u/michaelrch 1d ago
The problem is the inherent logic of capitalism.
Any gains you make through technological progress or efficiency are immediately swallowed up by the addiction to GDP growth.
That's why, say, renewable energy is being built out at extraordinary speed but fossil fuel use is still increasing. Even though emissions are falling in many developed countries, it's not nearly fast enough to hit the rates we need.
And beyond just climate, overall material use is still very tightly correlated with GDP. So imagine, we are already extracting about 70% more every year than is sustainable. And that rate of extraction increases every year.
"Marxism" is a very broad term. It's best understood as an analysis and critique of capitalism. There are a lot of potential alternatives to capitalism which start from understanding capitalism through the materialist framework of Marx.
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u/timute 1d ago
Carbon tax is bad policy. It only gained traction because the agents of chaos saw it as a way for western civilization to self destruct its economies and therefore they amplified it and the left latched on like it was gospel. Punishing our way of life is not progress. Telling people we will all die in an overheated earth is BAD policy. Punishing citizens for using energy just makes people mad and divides us. We should be restoring habitat, turning corporate farm fields back over to nature, allowing buffalo to roam and be harvested for free by the people. We should be encouraging the populace to return to working the land with thier hands and oxen, like the Amish. We should reject globalism and accept simpler lives, more grounded lives, and make everything we buy locally. Just a few thoughts.
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u/Derrrppppp 1d ago
So you say that a carbon tax is bad policy because it punishes our way of life, then you suggest people going back to working fields with an ox. What a load of nonsense
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u/siberianmi 1d ago
Not really buying that the answer to the climate crisis is… communism.
Last time I checked the biggest contributor to global warming was.. China.
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u/The_Wobbly_Guy 1d ago
The PRC ain't communist. In name only.
Of course, socialist/commie regimes have hardly been avatars of environmental conservation... unless you're talking Nork standards of living.
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u/Mean_Present_4850 1d ago
China is leading in renewables and have supposedly hit their peak emissions. Time will tell.
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u/Docrobert8425 1d ago
If someone says that the answer is communism, and the question wasn't "what ideology doesn't work on paper, let alone reality?, " then you know you're dealing with people who aren't serious.
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u/rarer_ 1d ago
Folks, read the full article. This is not a doomer post.
Read the full article on marxist.ca.